Check yourself out, soon coming to a supermarket near you

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Migros, Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain, is about to start trialling two new shopping systems, both designed to save time in checkout lines, says the store. The first will allow shoppers to scan a limited number of large items themselves. The second will allow them to check themselves out by scanning a limited number of items and paying for them.

Ikea has had a similar system for some time, but not for food items. Migros is starting its Subito system in Zurich, Lucerne and several areas in eastern Switzerland 6 September before rolling it out across the country.

Migros hasn’t said what it plans to do with the checkout staff, but if they follow Ikea they’ll put them all to work helping those of us who can’t figure out how to scan and check out by ourselves :-). Who wins here, I’m not sure.